Six Months

It's really good that I am not a professional blogger, as updating once a month would earn me about zero dollars.

Anyways, lets see what has been going on..
I have been working about 50,000 hours a week, which means that I usually sit at a desk all day and do nothing. How typical.

I was planning on just looking in my journal to see what I was going to blog about, but it seems that I have not written in my journal in about two months. Also typical.

We celebrated valentine's day at school, Dia del Carino, except the n has the little squiggly over it which I cannot find on this computer. I received a teddy bear and a note from a student asking me if I liked him. My U.S. mom thought it was cute until I told her how old the student was. In case you were wondering, he is not a little kid. It was a bit awkward. Anyways.

Also some of the teenage boys decided to pierce their ears with a needle in class, so that was a lovely experience.

I have been in the Guate for over six months, which is absolutely insane. Time is just flying by! I really thought I would be miserable and counting down the days until I return and weeping all the time, but I have yet to weep at all! And for those of you that know me real well, I make countdown calendars for everything and I have not made one for my return!

I have made a list of "you know you've been in the guate for too long when". I got my inspiration from the "you know you're a redneck when" jokes by Michael Foxworthy. Anyways, here they are. You probably won't understand them unless you have been to the Guate, but I still think they are entertaining.

You know you have been in the Guate too long when:
-you don't think twice about eating candy from the bus ayudante (the guy that takes your money on the bus)
- you try to hot glue ten dollar target sandals back together
- you eat your pasta with a tortilla instead of a spoon
- you eat your salad witha tortilla instead of a fork
- you stop using utensils altogether
- you no longer care if your pants are zipped or not
- you can go to the bathroom anytime, anywhere
- you buy food on the bus from strangers

I am sure I will think of more at some point, I just find myself so hilarious!

Also, we went to Belize for our six month retreat! It was sooo amazing!!

This is us on the boat in Belize! We went snorkeling off the coast with sea turtles and fishies and sting rays and sharks! It was so amazing!

 

The YAVs and I relaxing on the beach..it was white sand! Soooo pretty!

 

I love Guatemala, but I also love Belize. Belize was a lot cleaner than Guatemala, and people seemed a lot less afraid than the do in the Guate.

 

In other news, I tried liver last week. This is it raw. I touched it. I tried it cooked though, do not worry. It was very soft. I think I will stay away from it in the future.

 

That is all for now!

 

Whoops!

I am really slacking on this whole blog thing.. whoops!

The YAVs had our January retreat at Monterrico..aka the beach! It was super pretty even though it had black sand. And the hotel had air conditioning! The first air conditioning I have seen since being in the Guate. 

This is us at the beach! 

We ate tons of amazing food and then we got to release baby sea turtles!

This is me with my baby sea turtle. I look a little crazy because..well..it´s the Guate.

My turtle peed on me but I still loved him. 

School started again, so it has been mass chaos! I am teaching English and Math and its certainly an adventure..I literally had a child hanging off my leg the other day. Im not sure what he was doing. 

In other news, I went to my cousins house with my mom to see how they make traje. They only make corte, which is the skirts. I will steal a picture off Annie´s facebook to demonstrate the traje. 

Annie is the tall white girl, obviously. Pictures don´t really do justice for traje, but I think it is absolutely beautiful.

Anyways, my cousins are making me my own corte! It´s going to be dark red and cream colored, but it´s not finished yet. While I am waiting for it to be finished, an amazingly nice lady at my church lent me her traje!

I look very awkward and slightly pregnant...but it´s the Guate. 

I think that is about it..our February retreat is to Belice so I will definitely update you guys on that!

Travel in the Guate

My lovely parents came to visit me after christmas! It was amazing to be able to share the Guate with them!

First we went to Lake Attitlan and stayed in a little hotel. We explored Santiago and Panajachel, and took boat rides!

My mom and I in Panajachel

Next we went to Xela and they met my family and we went to church about four billion times. 

Then we went to Tikal! I saw lots of monkeys!

Tikal was about four billion degrees with one thousand percent humidity and we almost died of hotness. But it was cool! We climbed lots of stairs and saw lots of old rocks...

Well I must pop off to the post office now...

Feliz Navidad!

Sorry for my lack of updates! My motivation has gone out the window!
Instead of boring you with every mundane thing i have done in the past month, I´ll just post some pictures!

The christmas tree in San Mateo, there was a little ceremony when they lit it and I met the mayor! He reminded me of Bill Richardson..

My sister´s kitten Minino, I´m slightly obsessed.

We made pecan pie at our YAV retreat!

Some relatives of my host dad make typico clothing, and my mom had this bag made for me!

Dancer at the Baktun celebration! I might marry him.

Me as an angel in our church Christmas play...I was magnificant if I do say so myself!

Christmas poches! SO AMAZING!

Well that´s enough of an update, my parents will be here tomorrow so I must prepare! Yo estoy feliz como un lombriz! That means happy as a worm. Worms here must be happier than worms in New Mexico.

Cual Gran Es El

I was not planning on updating the blog as I have done absolutely nothing interesting in the past week and a half, but my father Atticus ever so politely reminded me that I should. 

These are the events of consequence that I have accomplished in the past week and a half:
I popped into the hospital for a bit (guatemalan hospitals, while very clean and nice, are quite boring! there was not even a radio in the room)
I helped with vacation bible school at my church (actually i think i did more standing around than helping, but i´m sure my presence was a gift :). )
I knitted a scarf (its purple and blue and kind of ugly, but i wear it all the time anyways)
I started reading five books and have finished approximately...zero 

However, I did have a minor breakthrough this morning as I finally figured out how to shut the water in the pila off! For those of you who don´t know, probably all of you, this is a pila:



This is not my pila, but I borrowed the picture off google..hope nobody minds! Our pila is a bit old and the faucet is broken, so we turn it off using a combination of a plastic bag and a hair tie. My mom calls it ¨modern¨hahah! But today I finally figured out how to turn it off myself. I was so proud! Also, we do laundry in the pila. Which means I postpone doing laundry for as long as possible. 

..Well i think that´s enough for now. I was going to leave you with a picture of my family´s cat, Mininoe (or some variation of that spelling), but I forgot my camera cord. Have a good week!

New beginnings

I have had an eventful past couple of weeks!

I usually use my journal to write my blogs but I forgot it so I will just have to wing it..

I went to my first Guatemalan wedding! A couple from my church got married and my parents were their godparents. The wedding lasted...five hours! It was a lot of fun though and it was good to see everybody so happy. 

Family photo after the wedding

I had never met the couple before..but my mom made me be in the pictures anyways!

After the wedding my brother gave me a guitar lesson. I mentioned once to my mom that I wanted to learn and my brother offered to give me lessons without me even asking. My family is truly amazing.

As most of you already know, we had a major earthquake here. I was at school when it happened so I gathered my little children to me and huddled under the door. Two people in San Mateo died and many more died in San Marcos. My house is okay, there is just a large crack all the way down the hallway. 

The other YAVs, Marcia, and I had our November retreat at a coffee finca (plantation). It was so amazing! We got to pick coffee with the workers, and I actually really enjoyed it. Most Guatemalans can´t afford to buy coffee from Guatemala (we always drink instant coffee) and it makes me so sad. It´s like a New Mexican who can´t afford green chile because it´s all exported.

I honestly did not know coffee was red..the process is quite interesting!

We all went on a hike and explored the finca, we climbed up a cliff using only tree roots, it was awesome!

We had another earthquake, it wasnt as strong as the first one but still did some damage in San Mateo. The large crack in my hallway has grown but the house is still standing!

My host mom celebrated her 50th birthday while I was gone at the retreat. Being the amazing person that she is, she saved me birthday cake. I am going to live with her forever!

Today was the graduation for the kids at Ceipa. I was so proud of my little students! Well actually they are big students as most of them are at least 15, but I am about two feet taller than them. These kids only graduated sixth grade, but that is such an accomplishment for them. These kids have to decide daily whether they will work to support their family or go to school. That is not a decision a child should ever have to make. 

my two favorite non graduating boys, they still have a year left

After graduation!

I´m sure more things happened..but my memory is still failing me. Oh well!

Tamalitos and cookies

I have not really had access to a computer lately, so I apologize for not updating!

I made chocolate chip cookies for my family last weekend, and for some reason they were as flat as a pancake. Like almost see-through. My mom thought I ¨tortilliad¨them. Perhaps it was because I didn´t have measuring cups and eyeballed everything..oops.

I gave my first english lesson! Those poor children... Half the time they ask me what a word is in english but I don´t know what the word in spanish is so I just make something up...

My family does not celebrate Dias de los Muertos, so Annie came over and we went to the cemetary by ourselves.  

Friday was my sister´s graduation and we had no less than half the population of China in our house. We all woke up early and made TONS of food. 

 We made tamalitos, pure maize wrapped in leaves and cooked.

The party after the graduation was really fun, everybody made sure to include me so I didnt feel left out. There is a boy at church that speaks English, and I offered to help him with his english if he helped me with my spanish..he didnt seem too enthused. rude. I´m still working on him though.

There is also this lady at church that is about 402 years old, and is about three feet tall. Even shorter than my grandma! She has half a tooth left and only one eye but she is very cool. She dances during the service when she wants to, she prays outloud when she wants to, she sings whatever song she wants to, regardless of whether the rest of us are singing the same song. She also rocks out when the worship band plays and claps to a beat that only she can here. Everytime I see her she toddles over to say hi to me, I really like her. 

On that note, I must go prepare for another English class today. Hope you all have a good week!